Looking back at 2023

 As 2023 comes to an end, I am taking the time to reflect on what has happened in our family.  

As usual, let's start with Dave!  He continues to make strides at his job.  He received the Teacher of the Year award from the MUSC pharmacy class of 2026.

Dave and Amy heading to the MUSC Pharmacy Spring Banquet

He also received the Ken Couch Distinguished Mentor award from the SC Pharmacy Association.

  

Dave and Amy at the SCPHA awards banquet

In addition to his day job, he continues to enjoy fishing and hunting.  He also has been working hard at maintaining our house!  He has been painting the outside of the house and repairing the bathroom floor.  This not only involved the floor but renovating the whole bathroom.

Dave and Amy went to Southport, NC in January for Dave's late birthday present.  He really likes the lobster bisque at a restaurant called Oliver's on The Cape Fear.  It is really good!  And the town is a fun place to explore! 

Dave and Amy were able to spend several days at Smith Mountain Lake while Camden was in cross country camp at Liberty University.  They had a good time exploring old haunts in Lynchburg and visiting the church where they were married.  

The church where they were married.

And on New Year's Eve 2023, they will finish the ABC eating out challenge.  Basically, they went with friends to restaurants with names beginning with the different letters of the alphabet.  The Z restaurant will be on New Year's Eve!  That is a lot of eating out, but it was very fun trying new places.  

Amy has had a year of continuing to work on her goal of running a half or full marathon in all states.  She was able to knock out Arkansas and Oklahoma in one weekend while hanging out with her sister!

She and Camden drove to Ohio during Spring Break to run in Coshocton.  Amy ran the half and Camden ran the 10K.    

And then she, Camden and Nathan went to Maryland for Amy and Camden to run a half in August.  Nathan was their support crew and bought yummy bagels for them to eat when they were finished.

  

In October, Amy and Camden went to DC for Amy to run the Marine Corps Marathon and Camden to run the 10K.

And to finish out the year, she and Camden both ran the Rocket City Half Marathon in Huntsville, AL.

But more important than all of her races, Amy was able to go to Ecuador and serve at the Dunamis Foundation with her church.  The Dunamis Foundation works with girls who have been rescued from sex trafficking.  She helped with the team that was teaching the girls to quilt.  It was a life changing experience, and she hopes to go back in the future to serve again. 

For all of Amy's trips, if you are interested, you can read about each in their own blog post.

Nathan has officially flown the coop!  He lives in Columbia right now but is actively trying to move west to Colorado or Utah.  He's still young and unattached and wants some adventure!  We are able to visit with him and were happy that he could go to MD with us!

Nathan took Amy to Halls for her birthday!

Nathan and Camden in DC

Celebrating Nathan's birthday 

Camden continues to do well in school and with his running.  He runs track and cross country, in addition to running 10Ks and half marathons with Amy on her trips.  He is a good travel partner!  

Camden with his Coshocton 10K medal

Camden at Fort McHenry

Camden on top of Sharp Top Mountain

Camden at Liberty's cross-country camp

Camden is a junior at West Ashley High School.  He was inducted into the National Honor Society this year in addition to receiving his high school class ring.  He also works at Chick-fil-a, volunteers at church and is part of a podcast with his friends from church.  The name is Through the Thorns, and it is on Spotify.  He ended the year with another 24-hour running challenge.  This involved running one mile every hour for 24 hours.  After doing this last year h=by himself, this ear he had two friends join in the craziness!   

Camden and his CCS friend at the National Honor Society Induction

Camden refereeing at CORE basketball at CBC

Camden and his teacher who presented him with his ring

The beginning of the running challenge

As you can tell, we stayed busy this year! It was a year of fun and serving.  And lots of running for two of us!  2024 will definitely bring more running and more change as our boys grow and make life decisions.  We look forward to seeing what God has in store for them because God has plans for them.  Plans to prosper them and not to harm them.  Plans to give them hope and a future.  Jeremiah 29:11

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!!  

Sweet Home Alabama...state 20!!

Alabama was my 20th state to run in and I did it two years and two days after my back surgery!  Last year I ran Delaware the weekend of my surgery anniversary and I have to admit, I like doing a half on this anniversary!

So, December 10, Camden and I got out in the chilly and windy weather and ran the back half marathon of the Rocket City Marathon.  After having finished a full marathon 6 weeks earlier, I was very happy to only be running half!  Our race did not start until 9 and we were able to wait inside until it started, so that was nice.  Real potties and chairs...and Camden even found a pool table.  

Camden is not a fan of cold weather running!  He definitely has lived his whole life in Charleston, SC!

As noted, I had just come off of running a full marathon and felt good about my training.  Since pulling a muscle in the spring and having run two halfs while recovering, my half times had gotten very slow.  But I thought this would be the day to get it back to a normal slow, but fast for me!  And it happened!  This was the second time I had run a half after a full, and both times I felt strong during the half.  For the first half of the half, I had an average time of 10:26 min/mile and the second half only slowed to an average of 11.02 min/mile. I was under 2.5 hours and had negative spit my last mile.  So overall, I did good for me!

Camden had a time of 1:54:49 with a 8:46 min/mile.  He listened to a podcast the whole time!  He was happy with his time.

This race had been recommended by a man I met when running in Mississippi.  He said it was a good race and there were lots of Christmas activities in Huntsville.  He was right on both!  And the race was interesting in that if you chose to run the half, you could either run the front half or the back half of the marathon.  The race website described the second half as more scenic in that you ran through the space center and the botanical gardens.  It also started later so you didn't have to get up as early.  Good thing too because 5 minutes into our 15-minute drive to the start, I realized my air Pods were at the hotel.  Since I had given us a time cushion, I had time to go back and get them.  We were a little anxious about time at that point, but we got there in plenty of time to catch the shuttle to the starting line, go to the bathroom there, and play some pool!  

The race itself was a chilly and windy start, but the sun came out a little and I was taking off my top layer after a few miles.  It never got hot, which was nice, but a short sleeve shirt was more comfortable most of the race.  The racecourse was good with not too many hills, and they weren't too steep on the back half at least.  You did have to make adjustments in your mind when you saw the mileage signs as they were labeled for the full.  But looking at my watch kept me straight.    

Running through the US Space and Rocket Center

Jazz hands are normal when running!

What did confuse me was when I got to the 26-mile marker.  I had the half on my brain and thought I only had .1 left.  And then I saw a 13-mile marker painted on the ground and realized I had another .1mile left!  And the end of the race was a ramp into the building!  At least it was not as steep as the end of the MCM!!  As I ran to the finish, I ran right past an older runner.  Should not have even thought I was fast and passing people at the end because they were announcing that a 74-year-old man was finishing his full marathon.  Very humbling!  I am just going to think that he did the early start and really didn't finish a full in the same time I did a half!!  

After the race we were treated to PT's using massage guns on our legs!  Also, they had food like pizza, cookies, bagels, Coke, water and bananas!  One disappointment was that the selfie station that we used during the expo didn't send us our post-race picture.  

After heading the hotel for a quick shower, (the lady at the hotel had given us a very generous late check out!) we made one last photo stop at the space center to show off out medals!

Medal pictures complete, we got in the car for the 8 hour drive home.  Normally I stay the night after the race, or only drive home part of the way, but this had to be a quick trip.  But to get to number 50, some states will be like that!  

Touring DC

If I was ever a travel agent, my company would be called something like "you will get your money's worth" agency.  Or "you will get to see every monument in DC" agency.  In other words, we do a lot and use every possible minute to see new things!  I will say this, we did have earlier evenings than usual due to being tired from waking up early and running a lot!

Our trip started at 6:00 am Friday morning, October 27.  We left early so that we could get to the MCM expo.  I like race expos and was excited to get to this one.  It was located at the Gaylord Hotel at Washington Harbor.  I was good and did not spend too much money, but I did buy a new pair of socks.  We also were able to walk around the harbor which has a lot of shops and restaurants.  And some cool statues!

         

Winston Churchill

The Awakening

This statue used to be at Hain's Point 

Inside the Gaylord

After checking in to our hotel in Crystal City, we found a good Italian restaurant within walking distance.  The Portofino Restaurant.  When you walked in, there was a stairway to their basement.  Camden spent the night speculating about the mob meeting in that basement!  The food was good, though, and the bread was fantastic! 

Saturday morning started at a reasonable hour.  Since Camden was going to have to take the metro by himself the next day, this day was used to teach him how to use the metro.  We were able to walk around the Capitol before the Museum of the Bible opened at 10.  

Botanical Gardens

Grant's Memorial

Supreme Court

 

At 10:00 we were able to enter the Bible Museum.  It was a really good museum!  It was neat to see lots of famous Bibles, but they also had cool exhibits about the Bible.  They had one exhibit that told the overall story of the Old Testament.  The story was told through sight and sound type movies and objects, and you also walked through different rooms to see this story.  We also did an extra virtual reality ride that showed us different places in DC which displayed the Bible.  We felt like we were flying over DC to see these sights.  We ended our time at this museum with an expensive museum lunch, but at least it had really good fries!  

Views from the top floor of the museum

We found the mile sign for Camden's 10K

After the Bible Museum, we hurried over to the Holocaust Museum.  We got there just in time to see it all before it closed.  This museum is an important one for all people to see, even if it isn't a fun one.  It is also one in which you want to read everything as it is all so important.  The last part of the museum is a video of holocaust survivors.  One lady talked about the death march in which they had to walk for months.  I figured if she could do that, then I couldn't complain about running for 26 miles.  

The memorial at the end of the museum

Amy found the mile 23 sign in Crystal City after dinner

It was nice to come back to a clean room!

Sunday was a day without sight-seeing!  Except for the 6-hour running tour!  We did take the metro to Chinatown for dinner though.  We picked Full Kee because they were advertised as having good dumplings.  The appetizer dumplings were ok, but the Hong Kong style dumpling soup was really good!    

After dinner, we spent the rest of the evening watching NCIS in our hotel room!  It was a relaxing evening!

Monday was our day to head home, but we had a few stops first!  First thing in the morning, we headed to the National Zoo to see the pandas before they are sent back to China.

The one other animal we saw at the zoo was a bison

The pandas were really cute!

 

Metro escalators can be very long!

After seeing the pandas, we hurried out of the zoo and went to the Washington Monument.  After several times of wanting to go in the monument, we finally had the opportunity!  And it was really nice to see the views from the top of the monument after I had run in all of those areas!

 We then hurried back to the hotel to check out and head home.  With two more stops!  We drove to the Iwo Jima Memorial to see it without the crowds.  I was able to meet a retired-not retired Marine who took our picture.  It was neat to meet him.

The last stop of the day, other than stops to get food and eat in the car, was at the Marine Museum.  I only wanted to stop to get an ornament to commemorate my race, but since the museum was really nice, we spent about 45 minutes there.  About 15 minutes of it was hearing the story of the Iwo Jima photo from a volunteer.  It was really interesting!  

That is how we packed as much as we could into our 4-day trip!  Lots of fun and good memories with a little bit of running involved!